The Reveal
by Sparky Weedwhacker
Summary: A peak at Sirius's life in Azkaban. Just how did he get his hands on The Daily Prophet, anyway? K for *brief* swearing and mentions of violence. One shot.


Just how did Sirius get his hands on The Daily Prophet, anyway?

A/N: Just like Between Here and There this was part of a longer fanfic that I'm probably going to scrap. Instead I'm uploading this scene as a one shot. Love it, hate it, let me know what you think. Please review!

Footsteps. Muffled voices. Soft, their echoes muted by the distance between their source and the cell.

Dementors had neither voices nor feet. Ministry. One of the voices was harsher, impatient. Anger to mask fear.

Fudge.

Sirius's lip twitched with bitter amusement. A hooded figure approached his cell.

 _Shit._ He quickly thought of kneeling next to Edgar Bones, shaking his shoulders. Turning him over. The inanimatness of his eyes letting Sirius know the man was dead before he noticed the wet, red hole.

A dementor slid bonelessly through the bars of his cell and hovered at his feet.

Those couldn't have been eyes. The pupils were too wide. The sheen of them was too glossy. Human eyes couldn't possibly become that blood shot, as if every vessel swelled and broke.

The dementors presence cut through him like a knife as it hung in the air, it's robes roiling as if caught in a breeze. _There's no joy here for you to steal_ , he thought, glaring up at it. _Nothing here but Edgar and me._ It lingered. It didn't believe him.

A shrieking laugh followed by hysterical babbling. "Pig! Vermin! Just you wait! _Just you wait!_ "

More laughter. Like the rapid sawing of a bow over violin strings. His cousin. Her and the other Death Eaters loyalty to Voldemort seemed to affect the dementors treatment of them. The dementors showed them no mercy, just occasional indifference from time to time.

This was not one of those times.

It couldn't be. Not with representatives from the Ministry walking around. The dementor left, sucking back through the bars and out of sight like a sheet yanked by a hook. Her sharp laughter melted into pitiful sobs.

"It's quite baffling, isn't it? Most people are husks of their former selves, but these people, the Death Eaters… well, they're awful resilient, aren't they?" A young man. Ignorant. Soft with a cultivated inexperience that came from a life of luxury. Sirius had seen the type many times before.

"Voldemort only chose the most powerful of wizards to be in his inner circle," came the explanation carried by the voice of man old enough to know better. Anger glowed like fire in Sirius' belly at hearing the reverence mingling with the tone of fear.

The preferential treatment the Death Eaters received was obvious, not by their preserved minds, but how they shriveled when the dementors finally came to them. They broke just as well and as completely as a new inmate. How could the Ministry not see? How?

Sirius listened to them approach. Their foot steps. Their daft banter. New voices. Fudge was the only constant factor in these inspections. The dementors respected his position, or at least recognized that they should. But they were known to take nips at his flunkies. Most were good for three visits at the maximum.

Closer.

Closer.

The team of Ministry members was almost to him! He let the anticipation swell as he sat up on the thin mattress of his cot, so thin it may as well not have been there at all. The door whined in its hinges as it swung open, the iron rusty from the salty mist of the ocean that surrounded them. A witch. Two wizards. Fudge, his nose buried in The Daily Prophet, the pages framing his face like blinders on a horse.

No one spoke like they had in the cells of the others. Fudge's entourage generally didn't when they realized he was not incoherent with misery.

The witch looked from her clipboard to Sirius and then back again as she checked off boxes. She flipped the page, lowered a set of goggles over her eyes and repeated the process, occasionally flipping up lenses or lowering them, depending on the organ or vital she was checking.

The younger of the two wizards walked around the cell with his own clipboard. Tapped the bars at the window with his wand. Check. Tapped the loo. Check.

The older wizard, the one who called the Death Eaters "powerful", was an Auror. This made Sirius think even less of him for not perceiving the dementors treachery and for the hint of awed respect in his earlier statement.

"Are you almost done with that?" Sirius asked.

Everyone winced. Wide-eyed panic. The Auror's hand dropped to his wand in a holster at his side. Fudge's fingers clenched, the paper crinkling as his knuckles whitened. "I would very much like to read it, if you are." Fudge's silence was deliberate, and pregnant with the "no" he was too afraid to say. "I understand if you don't want to give it up. I'm sure it's a nice distraction from the unpleasantness of looking at this place. It is rather frightening, isn't it?"

The witches frown deepened and the Auror cast Fudge a sidelong glance. They likely noticed Fudge's odd habit too. The witch was resentful of it, judging by the way her jaw shifted. The Auror looked at Fudge in appraisal, Sirius's words making him reconsider the man before him. Both likely thinking the same thing; coward.

Fudge closed the paper and then folded it. Inhaled deeply through his nose. Eyes narrowed. "It seems almost cruel to give it to you as it's a reminder of the freedom which you gave up by choosing to serve You-Know-Who."

Sirius felt tempted to jeopardize his endeavor and rise to the goading. But he knew Fudge was posturing, trying to save face in front of his cohorts.

Fudge was trying to show he was strong, he was in charge. Which is why after a dramatic pause that was surely supposed to leave Sirius anxious with suspense, he strode across the cell. A collective breath was held as he stopped barely arms length away. He held out the paper. Mindful of the Auror and how his hand still hovered at his hip, Sirius slowly reached out and took the paper from Fudge's hand.

"You're too kind," Sirius told the Minister's retreating back. Fudge looked awful proud of himself. The two wizards were impressed by the display, the younger one wearing an expression of embaressingly open awe. The witch was smart enough to be flabbergasted at Fudge submitting to the blatant manipulation, but she was also smart enough to hold her tongue in front of the Minister.

Sirius hoped she didn't last long. He got much satisfaction from the challenge of beguiling Fudge into giving him the paper every month. It would be a shame if she ruined it for him.

Shaking open the paper and hiding himself much like Fudge had, Sirius allowed himself a smile, chancing that a dementor would not enter the cell as long as Fudge was overseeing the inspection. His smile died when he saw the picture of Gideon and Fabian standing in front of pyramids, with their sister Molly, her boyfriend (what was his name? Garth? Martin?), and a collection of redheaded youths he did not recognize, smiling, waving—

"Alright. We're done here."

Sirius closed the paper. As the others headed for the door, Fudge moved back across the room. "Give it back."

The witch froze in the doorway, shaking her head in slow disbelief. He needed his security blanket back.

"Can I keep it, please? I like to do the puzzles. Keeps my mind sharp. Surely, you don't need the distraction. This place does not affect you as it does other weak minds."

"You're not letting him keep it, are you?" the witch asked, incredulous as Fudge made to follow her out. The Minister noticed her displeasure and mirrored it. He nonchalantly looked over his shoulder at Sirius and then down his nose at her. Even if the dementors didn't shake her, she would not be returning. She was not high enough ranking for Fudge to tolerate her criticism.

"There's no harm in it," he said, deceivingly carless. Sirius didn't bother to wait until he was alone in his cell before he shook the paper back open, didn't hear as the rusty hinge squealed or the lock caught. He was back to the page with the Prewitt's.

No. Not Prewitt's. Weasley's. It was indeed Molly, and with the initial shock worn off he noticed the boys he mistook for Gideon and Fabian were younger than Sirius had ever seen them. He remembered now; she had married right at the end of the war, before her brothers died. To Arthur Weasley, according to the caption.

A dementor glided past his cell, not giving him a second glance.

His eyes were drawn to the scruffy garden rat perched on the youngest boy's shoulder. A peculiar, fat thing it was. It seemed larger than one would expect, and its snout shorter. Its paws didn't splay right, its toes oddly thick and dexterous. He squinted, his face so close to the paper his nose pressed into it.

It never occurred to Sirius that he might be finally losing his mind, but the thought struck Fudge as his angered screams echoed through the corridors, shrieking in a way that put Bellatrix to shame.

His screams died to a laugh, and the dementors continued to pass him by because it was a jagged, mad sound with no delight in it.


End file.
